Once a digital television is Internet-enabled, delivery of a wide variety of new types of services and features is possible. One current implementation captures viewer actions such as record, play, re-play, pause, etc. and by correlating the precise timing of the action with the channel line-up and channel number; exactly what was being viewed when the action occurred can be determined.
The data capture operates in the background, with no user involvement. Captured data is “anonymized” and sold, as well as mined for useful information to sell to broadcasters and content providers.
A second implementation allows “bookmarking” of songs. If a song comes on that the listener likes, he or she can push a button on the player which causes the title and artist of that song to be reported to a website. Then later, when the user revisits the website, he or she can review the list of bookmarked songs and possibly decide to buy the CD or download and own a copy of the song from an online store. The user can bookmark either the song or the artist.
Metadata can be delivered along with audio/video content. Types of metadata include the title of the program and episode, synopsis, a URL linking to the program or episode's website, content advisory rating, a URL corresponding to more information on a product or service, a content ID tag (unique identifier of content), links to available downloads of past episodes, for example.